Child resistant containers for poison and prescription drugs are mandatory in the commercial sale of those compositions. Typically, child resistant containers involve a threaded cylindrical cap which in turn is threaded to the threaded end of a cylindrical container neck. By rotation of the cap to a particular circumferential position on the container neck, the cap may be pried off where the threads of the cap and container neck are misaligned. Further, significant frictional forces lock the cap to the container neck and there is significant resistance to prying the cap off. Further, such caps are narrow and difficult to grasp. This purposely makes it difficult for children to open the container. Normally adults have no trouble in rotating the cap to the release or unlocked position and are guided in that rotation by alignment of a first indicia on the neck of the container with a second indicia on the cylindrical cover. Typically, the indicia on the container neck is a radial projection in the form of triangle or arrowhead which points upwardly toward the upper end of the neck and in turn the indicia on the cap is a similar radial projection of inverted triangular form, pointing downwardly.
Difficulty in opening the container and removing the cap occurs for adults who are ill or have physical handicaps, particularly those having arthritis.
Tests have been made to provide child resistant container openers and to provide openers which have additional functions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,205 issued Feb. 14, 1978, is typical of such container ap or cover opener. The container opener of that patent comprises a planar molded plastic body of rectangular form having a V-notch or recess therein with serrations on the diverging notch surfaces at one longitudinal edge, while its opposite longitudinal edge is provided with a cutting blade. An alignment wall aligns the cap of the container to the serrated diverging walls of the notch and the cap of the container is inserted into the notch, the cap is pressed against the friction means and the planar body is rotated while being palm-held to circumferentially align the indicia of the cap with that of the container neck so as to unlock the cap from the container neck. The opener is then detached from the cap and the cap is removed by inserted and twisting the blade between the cap and the container neck.
Other patents directed to solving this or related problems are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,178,646 issued Dec. 18, 1979; 4,455,894 issued June 26, 1984; 4,433,597 issued Feb. 28, 1984; and 3,885,478 issued May 27, 1975.
While such container cap or cover openers have assisted in the aligning and pry opening of a cap or cover from a tubular container or a neck bottle or the like, such openers as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,205, for instance, require the opener to be coupled to the cap or cover to perform one of the necessary steps such as alignment of the cap by rotation with the container proper or the threaded neck portion of a bottle and then the removed and different orientation for prying the unlocked cover or cap from the receptacle itself. Further, the openers as exemplified by the other patents are highly complex, expensive to manufacture and some have the same problems as U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,205.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a unitary, molded plastic cap opener which may be palm operated, provides a high degree of leverage in prying a cap off of a container and which facilitates rotation of the cap and circumferential alignment of indicia carried by the cap and container to cap unlocked position and which, remains in the same position on the cap to easily, effectively snap the cap off the container with highly leveraged minimal force.